Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the wildflowers move in, especially the lupine, tall, purple spikes that Robin says are of
the legume family, which means their roots fix nitrogen in the soil and make it habitable
for more complex plants, like the shrub community of willows and alders. Apres ca le de-
luge and the spruce and the hemlock move in to put the finishing touches on this temper-
ate rain forest, and indeed, are already rising up in patches on either side of the trail.
Seventy-five years ago, the trail we are walking on was under the glacier. Mother Nature
doesn't waste time in the Copper River basin.
We get to the lake, a still, mirrored surface in gunmetal gray, which Hank remembers
skating on in winter when he was a kid. The loading of the rafts is preceded by the don-
ning of rubber boots and rain gear, and a long discussion over who gets to sit next to
Joanna (a total babe, they're all in love with her) and who has to sit next to Mike (who is,
um, energetic). That resolved, more or less, our boatman, Bob Fink, blue-eyed and gray-
bearded and pony-tailed, gives us the safety lecture, or What To Do If We Fall In. We
listen respectfully, and then the thrill seekers commandeer the bow, the weenies the stern,
and Bob shoves us off.
The lake is the meltoff from the face of the glacier, into which the glacier calves. Crys-
talline towers and spires and obelisks rise up out of the water on every side and assume
weird shapes, the snout of an alligator, the fin of a killer whale, the eye of a toad, the trunk
of an elephant. What makes it even more wonderful is that it changes so rapidly. “Every
time I come down to this lake, it's different,” Bob says. “Tomorrow it'll look completely
different.”
All too soon we spot a line of white water, and Bob pushes the raft into a slow, three
hundred and sixty degree spin so we can admire the view for the last time, and then we're
off.
Now, when I was a kid living on a boat, the whole idea was to stay out of the water.
Hank, a commercial fisherman, agrees that it seems very odd to get wet voluntarily, but
get wet we do, diving headfirst and sideways and a couple of times nearly backwards into
Class 2 and 3 rapids, a boiling mass of gray waves and white foam that gives us a jolting,
lurching ride, side to side, up and down, almost around and around if Bob hadn't been so
quick on the oars.
